


Work as I've Been Told

by oppressa



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: 1980s, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, False Identity, Gen, Guilt, Mind Games, Workplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-11 22:52:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13534221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oppressa/pseuds/oppressa
Summary: Aleksander anticipates Claudia's wrath. He does not for one moment expect promotion.





	Work as I've Been Told

It begins like an ordinary day. He leaves Regina in bed at six thirty in the morning, lifts all her hair off her face onto the pillow and kisses her before he goes, curled as close as he can to catch her scent. 

She murmurs, only half-awake, “Do you have it under control?”

“What are you asking?”

“You know what I'm asking.” Her arm lifts, finding his forehead with her palm and holding it, as if to look into his eyes, though her own are still closed. “With my mother.”

He nods, nudging her open hand as it falls lifelessly. 

“Go back to sleep.” He says, though she already has.

 

It didn't occur to him to ask what he was doing at first. He needed to settle in here, he didn't need any trouble. And to start with he felt protected. He was okay with being just a tool, a cog in a machine, as long as it hid him inside it. You certainly get a better wage for that here than in _actual_ identity-stripping collectivism. But then he doesn't really work for the plant. His level of access only extends to the caves, nowhere near the reactor core. He works for Claudia Tiedemann by the light of a blowtorch, getting grubby, hot and exhausted and wondering what the fuck this is all about. It's been dawning on him that maybe she, these aren't the right people to have gotten close to – but he wouldn't let go of Regina. Unless he absolutely had to.

Falling for her the way he has reveals a weakness, and he thinks unfortunately her mother's noticed it, mostly conveyed by knowing looks which say _You didn't mean for this to happen, did you?_ She's too self-satisfied to say anything out loud. Part of him wishes he'd said less of the cocky shit when he walked in. Part of him is still grateful for what he's been given. Another part wants to stand up to her, to have this battle of wills and get her off his back for good. 

At around ten o'clock he's called in to her office, with the order to make himself presentable. He changes, in the toilet, into the shirt and trousers Regina ironed and he stuffed inside a sports bag. He can't do his tie right like she can – it seems to stand for all of it, he can't carry on with any of this, though it's the simplest fucking thing. In the end he decides not to wear it, because fuck the boss.

 

He regrets that when he's standing in front of the desk, shifting from foot to foot under her watchful gaze. The blinds are down. She gets up, comes to run her hands along his arms and approves, 

“This is good. Perhaps a little tight here.”

She loosens his collar with two fingers pressed against his Adam's apple, and he swallows, can't help it. Sometimes he can almost feel the leash she's got him on.

“You're not in trouble, Aleks. Sit down. Have a drink.”

It's cognac, and he has to try hard not to spit it out. To look her in the eye, and not see an image of fucking Regina last night from behind, her hand rubbing his fingers over and over her clit and crying “Yes, there, _there_ Aleks, _again_.” To not think about what he's got himself into.

He sniffs, lifts his chin. There is a typed document on the table that he's going to ignore for now. Maybe she's been waiting for him to make a mistake, and maybe he's made it, without knowing what it is. He's been careful but it would only take the slightest scrutiny of the forms he had to fill out, the most cursory of background checks to find he's not who he says he is. That his presence here is illegal, criminal, insinuating.

“It's been brought to my attention you've been with us for months and we haven't seen any official identification for you.”

This, though, is bullshit. No one brought it to her attention. He doubts he's even officially on the books, that his paperwork isn't filed away somewhere in this room and that anyone else ever saw it. She's trying to scare him, surely, although he doesn't know yet what for. If she's just bluffing, he decides to try one of his own, to seem helpful, harmless, and hope it's convincing.

“I can give you my passport, if it -”

She cuts him off by waving a hand. “That would prove very interesting, wouldn't it?”

She knows. She definitely knows. What can he say to that? Panic hits and takes over, talking for him, overriding his instinct to play it cool.

“Please don't call anyone. I'll go, if that's what you want, I'll pack up and I'll leave, tonight even.”

He imagines it, telling Regina they can make it out of this, if she can get over the fact he's been lying to her the whole time...

“No, that wouldn't work. Not now my daughter's completely taken in by you.”

“I'm bringing her with me. I'd get her as far away from you as possible, you -”

 _You selfish, overly-critical bitch_. He can't get it out, realising he's lost control. She smiles.

“You misunderstand me. I'm very happy for you to be together. And you don't _want_ to have to run again, do you?”

He stares at her, silent, the fires of rage dancing in front of his eyes. No, he doesn't. He just wants to go home to Regina and be loved, have the steady hands that bandaged his bullet wound like they knew what they were doing pour him a drink and stroke through his hair, and remind him of how she'd cared enough to sort him out when she'd known next to nothing of him.

“You aren't going anywhere, neither of you. I'm the one that's going away.”

Yeah, he's not going to pretend he understands, except for one thing. “You only took me on so you could manipulate me.”

“No, it was more than that; you're a very enterprising young man. And you're intelligent. You know there's more here than meets the eye. One day you may even be in charge. You turned up at just the right time.”

She puts an emphasis on _time_ like it's significant, as if he didn't stumble into Winden without knowing where he was, a stitch in his stomach and aching legs, burning lungs.

“So, do you accept?”

“Do I accept what?”

She slides the typed piece of paper towards him. “I require your consent to undertake certain duties passing to you in the event of my extended absence. I also require that you keep quiet about them. Even with Regina.”

He claws at the edge of the table, looks at the contract with his head swimming, unable to read any of what's printed, and up at her again with a face like thunder. “Do I even have a choice?”

She pulls out a pen from the drawer and drops it onto the paper. “Here you go. Sign it Tiedemann. You'll need to take our name anyway. It's flimsy, what you've done to cover yourself. This,” She taps the page with a fingernail, “this is to protect you all when I'm gone.”

“What are you talking about, us all?”

“Anyone else that might come along.” She clasps her hands and leans across; he has to try not to lean back. “I've seen things. You want to be left alone? To have a life with my daughter?”

He nods, his lips pressed together.

“This is just to make sure.” 

His hand shakes as he puts down this third person he has to become and then he throws the pen to the other side of the room.

She smiles again. Nothing he does seems to phase her, like she can predict his every move.

“Well done. Stand up. Straight. You might have to inspire confidence in people sooner than you think.”

He does, feeling like a puppet. Like everyone in this place is just her puppet, and that goes beyond the plant, it goes beyond the boundaries of anything he thought was possible before.

“I have to show you something now. Come with me.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Is Claudia good or bad I don't knowwwww...
> 
> Title by Fever Ray.


End file.
